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Tropes: Manic Pixie Dream People

Husband and I watched "Bridesmaids" last night. I'd picked it up for fairly simple reasons: I'd heard that it passed the Bechdel test, and I'd heard that it was about friendship and growth instead of about Women Behaving Badly At Weddings, and I wanted to see what such a movie would look like. And then after adding it to the Blockbuster movie queue, I started obsessively worrying that such a movie would never be made and that the whole thing would be failtastic and saddening, so the disk ended up sitting on our coffee table for weeks until Husband got tired of it and popped it in to watch.
It wasn't actually that bad. It had the SNL-movie problem (and I've no idea if the movie is actually affiliated with Saturday Night Live in any way, so I'm just using that as shorthand) where some of the scenes felt like stand-alone skits that had gone on too long. And there's an extended scene with toilet/vomit humor that I personally didn't find funny (but Husband laughed, so there's that).

But there were good things, too! The movie really is about friendship and growing up and maintaining relationships, and there was very little about bridegrooms and bridezillas and weddings. In some ways, you could have gender-swapped all the characters and still had the same movie, with a single man wondering how married life and married friends will change his relationship with his childhood best friend. Refreshing! There's also a fat woman who isn't totally unlikeable and/or the butt of all jokes -- although she is... very strange... so there's that... but... I kind of liked her anyway, so I'll count it as a tiny centimeter of progress on the HAES front. Because I want to be optimistic today. And there's a woman who is unhappily married and doesn't like her children and the movie doesn't shame her for it! Like, seriously, she has some of the best lines, even!

Of course, it turns out that all the married women in the bridal party are unhappily married, so that's kind of sad. Hollywood, can we not have one happy married person? But, no, I'm being optimistic today, so I'm going to say that it's nice that we can have unhappily married characters living lives of quiet desperation without being horrible, evil people. And they're even unhappy married women, which is kind of cool because marriage is too often supposed to be happiness-forever for women, so this is kind of a realistic subversion! See? Happy. So I guess Bridesmaids gets a tentative recommendation from me: I sort of liked the characters, I laughed several times (especially at the puppies), I respected the exploration of friendships as the participants grow and change, and I liked that marriage wasn't presented as the be-all-end-all that every woman should strive for. It didn't set my world on fire, but that's okay.

What I was less enthralled with was the protagonist's (let's call her 'Annie' because I think that might have been her name, but I'm not looking it up) love interest (let's call him 'Rhodes' because it's possible that was his name). Rhodes is a sweet cop with possibly an Irish accent who takes an interest in Annie after he learns -- in a roundabout way -- that the two of them are neighbors, that Annie used to own his favorite cupcake store, and that she lost the store, her boyfriend, her savings, and all her dreams when the store failed to thrive in our current economy. See, doesn't that make you want to give Annie a hug? It makes me want to, and Rhodes seemed to want to do the same.

At first I really liked Rhodes. He was a by-the-book cop who only decided to let Annie off because he genuinely felt sorry for her, and he didn't try to take advantage of her in any way. In fact, the whole scene-where-Annie-is-pulled-over-by-a-cop-at-night bit was handled so well that I was actually surprised. I mean, it's obvious that Rhodes is going to be her romantic interest because he's the first Nice Single Guy in the movie, but they're not flirting and he's very professional and the whole thing wasn't even a little bit rape-y. It's like the writers were actually aware that this sort of situation can be dangerous for certain people, and they bent over backwards to make everything safe and reassuring. MOAR, PLEASE.

But then as Annie got to know Rhodes more, I started cooling on him a little. He was really upbeat and cheerful, and that was nice, but he kept really strongly urging Annie to be upbeat and cheerful even though we-the-viewer could see that her life was a lot more complicated than he realized and that slightly-down-and-a-little-depressed was actually a pretty decent response on her part, all things considered. And about halfway through the movie it hit me: Rhodes is a Manic Pixie Dream Guy.

Now, I try not to hate on MPDGs. I get that they're a really compelling fantasy: someone comes along who just won't be put off by your drama, and instead they bring light and life and new perspectives and joie de vive with them, and things get better. That's pretty compelling when you feel like there's nothing that you, personally, can do to make life better -- maybe someone else holds the key to making life better! And I think if the subject is handled sensitively, it can come off well; I liked Phoebe from Friends well enough, and I think it's because she got a real character arc and wasn't just a catalyst to make someone's life better. So there's that.

But something I never noticed before -- and maybe it took a male character who was also a cop (and therefore has a little more privilege and power than your average MPDG) to make me see this -- is how pushy MPDGs are. Early on in Bridesmaids, Rhodes latches onto the notion that all Annie really needs to do is start baking again in order to be happy and healed, and he latches onto this largely because he liked eating her food and he wants more of it. Nearly every conversation he has with Annie has him urging -- strongly, intensely, seriously -- her to BAKE! and when she demures that her life isn't in the right place for that now, he gives her a scoffing look to express his quirky disdain for her and these things she calls feelings. Seriously, it's really off-putting.

At the mid-point of the movie, Annie and Rhodes sleep together and she wakes up with him staring at her. This is not quite Edward-Cullen-creepy as it mirrors an earlier scene where she had to get up and apply makeup before her bed-partner sees her, so it's kind of sweet in that it establishes Rhodes as the sort of guy who thinks she's beautiful regardless. But then he beckons her into the kitchen, where "more fun awaits".

Now, I like to yell things at movies, so I put on a pompous voice and said "YOU WILL BAKE FOR ME," but I didn't mean it. I assumed that the writers recognized that this would be really freaking pushy and instead I was expecting a movie-standard "after-sex" breakfast of burned bacon, rubbery eggs, and black toast. And maybe Annie could say something about it being the nicest thing she's eaten in a long time, and maybe Rhodes could finally get it through his criminally thick skull that Annie is a member of the Working Poor and that her failure to fix her car tail-lights isn't a quirky quirk of quirkiness, but rather a symptom of the fact that she's freaking poor and maybe he can get off his high horse.

*ahem* Sorry, that paragraph got away from me there. Anyway, no, he actually does basically say, "I expect you to bake in my kitchen so I can eat the baked things and this will be good for you." My jaw dropped.

It occurs to me that one of the defining traits of the MPDG is that zie doesn't really take 'no' for an answer. We've talked about how Stalker Edward Cullen is Sexeh because he's a stalker -- not because women want to be stalked and hurt and terrified, but rather because some people appreciate the idea of a lover who isn't going to be put off by depression and a bad personality. Edward's appeal lies in the fact that no matter how boring or depressing or blase Bella thinks she is, Edward still thinks she's the most wonderful person on earth. She can emotionally push him away as many times as she wants or needs to, and he'll come back every time -- he's like a security blanket on a bungee cord.

The flip side to this, though, is that the MPDG isn't able to recognize a real 'no'. Annie really isn't in a good place for baking right now. The whole effort is tied up with the fact that she lost her store, her boyfriend, her money, and all her dreams, and now she's working below the living wage in a job she hates and living with roommates who frequently violate her privacy and they don't recognize her poverty and neither does her best friend who wants her to fly to Vegas for parties she can't afford and her new boyfriend keeps nagging her about her car and none of this would be a problem if she hadn't lost so much money opening a bakery in the middle of a rough economy and she's a failure.

These are the things baking reminds Annie of. Annie doesn't need to bake this very moment, she needs a hug and some stress-free movie time (with popcorn!) and she needs a living wage and a better housing situation. It's not Rhodes' responsibility to provide these things, but he really should recognize these things if he wants to be considered a decent human being, and yet persistently he doesn't. Rhodes lives in a nice house with plenty of food and his own mountain bike and it never once occurs to him -- or, indeed, to anyone else in the movie -- that maybe Annie can't afford those things and maybe Annie doesn't want to dwell on that fact more often than her life forces her to. Imagine that!

There's nothing necessarily wrong with writing a character who is kooky or quirky or who pushes past defensive barriers in order to worm their way into a hurting character's heart. There's nothing necessarily wrong with a character who pushes back a little against boundaries in order to see where a relationship can go. But there is something very wrong about a character who persistently and constantly brushes past another character's I needs and I wants because the MPDG is just so dang sure that they know best what the other person's needs and wants "actually" are. Such a character is the worst caricature of an evangelist, pushing their own worldview and lifestyle on everyone else, regardless of individual need.

When Annie leaves Rhodes, refusing to bake for him, she says "You don't know me." I think we're meant to disagree with this, or to see it as the weak, plaintive call of the woman who flees from healthy relationships. The problem is, she's right: he doesn't know her. He doesn't know the first thing about her. He doesn't know how much money she lost when her bakery went under. He doesn't know how serious things were with her boyfriend when he left her. He doesn't know what she does now, or how she earns a living, or whether or not she cries herself to sleep every night. He doesn't know her, and yet he thinks he knows how to fix her.

He's right, of course, because Manic Pixie Dream People are always right by mandate of the writers.

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I was just talking last night about how little I liked this movie. It was cute, at times, but most it seemed to be "LAUGH AT HER PAIN!" and I was all "But... but... that really sucks... WHY WON'T ANYONE GIVE HER A HUG...." Her breakdown at the bridal shower was downright painful to watch because here she was trying her best to live up to impossible standards on behalf of her friend who really couldn't care less about her problems right now, trying to swallow her pain and loneliness and failing to do so and being kicked out of the clique for it. Not to mention how much Bitchy mcBitchpants picks on her for the crime of being poor

Yeah, I enjoyed it because I choose to see the "joke" as how privilege hides itself from those who have it and during the bridal shower scene I was laughing at the clueless bride-and-guests. "Haha, you guys are fools for not understanding why she's upset."

But I'm not 100% certain the writers WANTED us to view it that way. :/

Oh man, Bridesmaids. I usually hate comedies but this is actually one my favorites because Annie seems like a real person - not a quirky rom-com heroine who just needs a man to fix her but an actual human being with a rough past and relatable feelings, who's currently in a bad place both physically (environmentally?) and mentally. I actually started crying at the bridal shower scene, and cried even more when Megan (the fat woman) came over to give her a pep talk (which was a bit too "bootstraps!" for my liking, but I could see how Megan was trying to make her feel better).

I liked Rhodes at first, but after a while it seemed like he was trying to turn her into his idealized version of her. Like, I can see how he thought that maybe if she started baking again it would get her out of her slump, but after the first time she said "no" he should have backed off. MINOR SPOILERS: Naq yrnivat ure ncbybtl pnxr gb fvg bhg ba uvf sebag cbepu naq or rngra ol enppbbaf jnf whfg n qvpx zbir. Gung ernyyl fbherq zr ba uvz.

PS. I checked IMDB and you did get the character names right, just so you know.

Hmm, if I think of it that way it's more palatable, if not enjoyable. I have trouble with those kinds of scenes because they ring too true to me; I've BEEN that girl in a room full of people with nobody having any idea why I'm upset and silently disliking me for being upset in the first place :(

The worst is that situation where the MC did nothing wrong at all (unlike in this movie where she did make some pretty bad mistakes despite good intentions) and the MeanyPants spreads lies and malicious rumors, and everyone *believes* that crap, and the MC's best friends all abandon her and she just wants to curl up and die and it *doesn't get better* for like, fifty pages, and I'm just going "NUUU FRIENDS COME BACK!!!" and then she's humiliated at Prom or something and it's even WORSE.... and of course I have to keep reading because OMG NEED HAPPY ENDING NAO but it's a pretty miserable slog.

Shalador's Lady did that to me, as an example. Out of nowhere in the middle of a great series, written well, and with an enjoyable ending, but my poor heart can't take a reread :(

I was reading the first few paragraphs and thinking "O NOES, one of my characters is a MPDG, I *hates* them, how did that slip under my radar?" when I realized that ... not so much.

Because the character arc in the story belongs Manic Pixie Dream Girl's. She does use her sunny disposition and quirky antics constantly to push at Grumpy Love Interest, to get him to "lighten up"; but what actually happens is that she learns from him to, umm, "darken down."

(Also, there is a car accident, a cave-in, a medical convention, a series of television talk-show appearances, and punching. Much punching.)

Also, in regards to Annie's roommates - could they just kick her out like that? I thought that if your name was on the lease, you had to be given at least 30 days' notice for that sort of thing (not to mention that roommates =/= landlords, can roommates even kick you out like that?).

I just started rewatching Daria, a series I enjoyed thoroughly when I saw a few episodes of it years ago. And I'll say this for Daria: She does not put up with people thinking they know what's best for cheering her up. Her response to any such attempt is generally outright sabotage, and it is glorious. I never really liked these kind of characters, male or female. I'm kinda mopey myself. And sure, I wouldn't mind being more cheerfull. But when the series glorifies a character holding a megaphone to the mopey character's head and shouting "SMILE!", metaphorically speaking and it works, I get pissed. I can sympathise with the mopey character, and he or she is still her own person. Cheer them up, sure, but don't turn them into a braindead dopey-happy character who doesn't worry about anything. Say something about the third kidnapping to cheer you up, damnit. Yeah, like "I don't have low self esteem. I have low esteem of everyone else." Oh Daria, hugs! Yeah, I know, supposed to be 17, I don't care, no way her voice actress or her dialogue writer weren't of legal age!

Never have seen the movie, so I'll just make a general trope observation about the "bake now" scene. It is an annoyingly common trope of the Manic Pixies that they are muses to the blocked artist. Writers, painters, deadened corporate drones with former dreams of [fill in this space] are pushed by the Manic Pixie to confront their demons and get back on the horse. My suspicion is that writers were shooting for that trope. The lost baker rebuilding her career one cupcake at a time; I can totally see Zooey Deschannel doing the same thing to a guy (although for awesome subversion, she should do the same scene with a woman). They chose to overlook the obvious gender stereotype. They also ignored the potential pain of a character whose life was just wrecked and isn't ready to rebuild, but that is just the side effect of the Manic Pixie.

Daria! I loved that show. It was quite possibly the only show I loved as a teenager that my Mom also liked knowing I watched (she caught a few episodes with me). I usually expect cartoons to feel less realistic to me than live-action work, which is mostly just because stylized art is harder for me to get into than naturalistic. But the only characters who stayed two-dimensional by the end of the series were the ones who basically had to, because they didn't get enough screen time to be fully fleshed out, and a few stock characters in minor roles is pretty unavoidable in anything long-running if you want to avoid an incestuously small character pool.

there's a woman who is unhappily married and doesn't like her children

Is it twinset-and-pearls of me to feel that one of these things is not like the other? Unhappy marriages aren't usually one person's fault (unless you're looking at abuse), but not liking one's children is kind of a big deal. I mean, everyone loses patience with their children sometimes, and nobody always feels like being The Mother every single second, but not liking your kids at all? Unless they're all seriously extreme kids, that doesn't strike me as female empowerment, it strikes me as problematic.

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It is an annoyingly common trope of the Manic Pixies that they are muses to the blocked artist. Writers, painters, deadened corporate drones with former dreams of [fill in this space] are pushed by the Manic Pixie to confront their demons and get back on the horse.My suspicion is that writers were shooting for that trope.

From a writer's perspective, that's an interesting one. This is just my experience, but ... well, sometimes I benefit from a very gentle push. I benefit from my husband having faith in me and encouraging me. But if he pushed me properly, I'd just clam up: I have enough to deal with my own demons when it comes to writing without having to deal with pressure from him as well. The main way he can help me write is to provide stable support - as it were, a security blanket that's within reach rather than on a bungee cord (though how I love that phrase!)

But what I do suspect is that while such a person might actually be bad for a writer in real life, they're useful in fiction. They're not so much a Muse as they are a Plot Engine. The way they power through boundaries gives writers the ability to power through plot difficulties. A character who's sensitive to refusals is a character susceptible to all the reasons why things might not change - and thus a character who forces the writer to come up with less obvious solutions if anything is going to happen. Which, with a central character who's resistant to change, is going to involve some really difficult-to-think-of solutions.

A lot of it comes down to the fact that to keep a plot moving, you need a character who wants* something. If a character just wants to be left alone in their rut, they aren't going to make a story. A Manic Pixie not only wants things, they go after them forcefully. I'm not that familiar with that kind of story, but I'd say that they might be a necessary counterpart to the character-in-a-rut: fictionally speaking, you need a character with that much aggression to get anything to happen against such a static protagonist. It's kind of mathematical: in a really positive romance, the plot energy would be divided roughly half-and-half between the two lovers - say 35% each, with another 30 going to the secondary characters. But if your protagonist doesn't want to do anything except grind along, then they're only providing about 5% of the plot energy, and the suitor is going to wind up with a much higher-than-usual quota just by the laws of fictional physics.

*In this case, I'm distinguishing between 'want' and 'wish.' I wish I could win the lottery, but I'm not buying tickets and trying to guess the winning combinations and consulting psychics and walking out of my way to get to my lucky shop where I once won ten quid and doing all the other things that would generate opportunities for a story. On the other hand, I want to bake a nice Christmas cake, so I've bought a pan and set aside the ingredients, and given the right obstacles, hilarity could ensue. Wants are acted upon, wishes are not. Annie presumably wishes for her life to be better, but it sounds like she doesn't have any definite plans she's pursuing. From what I've read, the MPDG is a response to a protagonist who wishes but doesn't do much about it, and probably appeals to an audience's wishful side as well.

Well, in the movie she has three teenage boy children, and she regularly complains about their behavior (including a fairly hilarious hissed line about there being "semen everywhere"). From her complaints about her husband (he's boorish, he doesn't care about her feelings, he ignores her opinions, etc.) it sort of sounds like her sons have internalized their father's values of their mother being unimportant and not valuable.

I was reminded, in a strange way, of The Help where Aibileen makes a point of leaving a family when the children she's raised become old enough to be racist and treat her badly. It was kind of like this mom wanted to leave now that the children she's raised have become old enough to be sexist and treat her badly. As a step-mother of a 17-year-old boy, I found the portrayal sympathetic. But I'm not a bio-mother, so it's possible that maybe I'd feel differently about a child I'd actually raised myself?

Not sure if any of that makes sense or just sounds horrible of me. o.O

I think busting the myth that "All mothers have nothing but unconditional love for their children, period, end of story" can go a long way towards, say, helping abused children whose mother shows little to no love for them not internalize the guilt ("If even Hitler's mother loved him, how bad must I be that mine doesn't?"), and helping mothers who feel overwhelmed and frustrated seek help instead of internalizing the "bad mother" guilt.

Well, sometimes you don't like people you're supposed to like. Sometimes that's your issue, and sometimes it's not. I don't particularly like one of my siblings. Zhe's sexist, racist, homophobic, doesn't listen to others and treats hir spouse poorly. He is loved, but not liked, by many of the family members. I think part of being a family is pulling together even with people you don't like - love wins out. (Or duty, or guilt, or the desire to make other family members happy, or whatever.)

It wasn't all about how the wedding day had to be "perfect" OR about "which guy will Annie take to the wedding and therefore live happily ever after with?". YAY.

I think there were problematic elements (because it was a movie made by people, and as we know very few of those are perfect) but the positives way outweighed the negatives for me.

I read the baking scene way differently from you. I went in to the scene on the guy's side. I bought the trope and thought "oh she'll bake and then she'll feel better and try again" and then when she walked out I felt like I "got it". She wasn't ready. He was being a jerk. Like, since I went in to the scene thinking that it was going to work and went out of it thinking he was a jerk: I was pretty certain that that was the way it was supposed to be read. "He's being pushy; her problems are not caused by a lack of baking. Why the hell does this usually work in movies, anyway"

Not sure if any of that makes sense or just sounds horrible of me. o.O

Doesn't sound horrible, and considering that I haven't seen the movie, I really can't comment on that. From what you describe it sounds like 'is driven round the bend by her children' or 'doesn't like the way her children act' might be closer, but like I say, I haven't seen it. :-)

I think busting the myth that "All mothers have nothing but unconditional love for their children, period, end of story" can go a long way towards, say, helping abused children whose mother shows little to no love for them not internalize the guilt

Oh, I completely agree, and I'm sorry if I came across otherwise. And it's good for well-meaning mothers, too, because all of us have moments when we lose our tempers with our children and it's to have it accepted that nobody's perfect all the time. The more honesty the better, I say. I just felt that Ana's phrasing sort of implied that the film treated it as empowering for women not to like their children (though I may be misjudging both the movie and her) - and if a movie did that, I doubt it'd cheer an abuse survivor up either.

I was pretty certain that that was the way it was supposed to be read. "He's being pushy; her problems are not caused by a lack of baking. Why the hell does this usually work in movies, anyway"

Oh, sweet! I love it when my "insights" were actually how the movie was maybe supposed to read. It makes me feel like I cracked the code + it makes me happy when movie writers undermine problematic tropes. :)

I just felt that Ana's phrasing sort of implied that the film treated it as empowering for women not to like their children (though I may be misjudging both the movie and her) - and if a movie did that, I doubt it'd cheer an abuse survivor up either.

Ah, that's a good point. :(

I'm not sure how to reconcile that. I kind of DO think it's empowering to say "It's okay to not like your children" (especially there's nothing really controversial in media about a FATHER feeling that way, but I can't immediately think of a non-judged MOTHER in media who doesn't like her children), but then again I'm coming from a place where (a) I wasn't abused by my parents and (b) I have no children of my own. So I may be speaking from privilege-blinders. :(

I will say that I can't remember the woman in the movie being abusive to her children on-screen or even conveying to them that they weren't loved or not liked or anything more than just "exasperated mom". (It's possible I may have missed something.) I would NOT be in favor of a parent being abusive, or making it clear to their children that they weren't liked/loved/wanted because I do think that's too much to lay on a child.

But... at the same time I felt relief at the "it's okay to not like a given teenage boy, even if he is your son" message. And also, since there were times when I know my mom didn't like HER teenage daughter, I guess I saw it as not necessarily a permanent thing, that maybe she'd like her sons later. Or not.

Well, I can think of plenty of times I don't like* my teenage son. Or my teenage daughter. Or well past teenaged spouse.

Usually at times when they're being pretty unlikable.

There are even more times when I don't like MYSELF very much. And ditto.

If I never liked them, that would be a rather different problem. But I can imagine such a situation; there are some people I simply don't like. Usually it's because I haven't bothered to get to know them well enough; I've found it rare to utterly dislike someone who I really understand.

But it can happen. It isn't necessarily anything Wrong with them (or me, either); it can be a simple matter of badly clashing personalities. I don't feel guilty that I simply can't stand one of my co-workers, and like zir less the better I get to know zir, so long as I always treat zir in a courteous and professional manner.

Generally speaking, though, I like my children, my spouse, my siblings. But that liking doesn't extend to my entire family. There are certain people I'm just not going to enjoy spending time with (and I'm pretty sure don't enjoy me much, either.) That doesn't mean that we don't LOVE each other, or act towards each other with any less consideration or care**.

*I'm distinguishing here between "like" and "love". "Like" I consider warm positive regard. "Love", as they've been discussing over on Fred Clark's site, isn't as much about how one feels, as what one does.

**I would think "badmouthing their behavior to relative strangers" to fall under the heading of "NOT acting with consideration and care", so I'm not necessarily defending the film character here. (I haven't seen the film and I'm not likely to). This is more the category of "general musings, in part inspired by forced proximity to family over the holidays."

I haven't seen the film, so I'm not sure who all was in the room when the mother was complaining about her sons and husband, but if they were old friends that might be the best kind of crowd to do that complaining in. Old friends tend to stick up for each other, but they're not necessarily in regular contact with each others' families, so there are fewer consequences than, say, letting off steam with your son's girlfriend's mother about how much your teenaged boys are jerks. Or, say, complaining in a venue where your family itself is likely to overhear.

In the abstract: going through a few years where you don't much like your kids, even though you still love them and want them to be good and happy people, seems to me pretty much right. Realistic, even. Those years usually come at about the same time as the kids are being, well, jerks. Almost everyone goes through a phase where they are jerks. And then they grow out of it, and acknowledge they were jerks, and thank god/dess/flying spaghetti monster that they're not teenagers anymore, and can now interact like nice, sane adults with the other nice, sane adults in their families. It's sort of like how nobody really enjoys potty training: you get through it out of love for the people you hope your children will be, not because urinary functions are normally your favorite topic of conversation, and then everyone goes on with their lives and tries to forget about the experience.

Ana Mardoll:And they're even unhappy married women, which is kind of cool because marriage is too often supposed to be happiness-forever for women, so this is kind of a realistic subversion!

I find this tidbit interesting, because one of my problems with most films and TV shows and comic books and videogames is precisely what I consider to be a dearth of happy marriages. Maybe we're just looking at different works--movies, in particular, has more "happily ever after" stories because of its format--but my impression of most works is that if there's a married couple and its the actual focus of the story, it's because they're going to be separated, one of the two will cheat on each other, or, if they're particularly happy, because of them is going to die. In fact, my impression of works is that it's not marriage that's glorified--it's weddings. Movies and TV shows love weddings, but from what I've seen, the minute the countdown to marriage ends is the minute when the countdown to separation begins. And while it makes a certain amount of sense--stories are borne out of conflict and all that--the questions posed by the stories are rarely "how will the couple deal with a crisis and grow stronger?", but "how will the crisis drive the marriage apart?" I can think of a couple of examples--one of the reasons why I effing love Pete and Trudy in Mad Men is because of the way they've grown stronger over the years, and eventually found myself rooting for Seth and Anna in Deadwood--but they feel like exceptions rather than the rule.

I agree wholeheartedly with your feeling about happy marriages. Oddly, one of the things I like about the first two Addams Family movies (the reunion one was a massive mistake in my opinion) is the strength of the bond between Morticia and Gomez. Here is a married couple where the two of them are obviously madly in love with each other, even after they've been married some time (long enough to have three children, one of whom, in Addams Family Values, is 12 years old). Yes, they're off kilter with the rest of the world, but each one is crazy about the other and that comes across very strongly.

I'm having trouble finding my source to double check this (I think I know the book I read it in, but don't know where and am not going to reread the whole book right now) but as I recall the executives at FOX objected to Zoe and Wash's marriage. They didn't object to it because it was interracial, or because Zoe being the warrior and Wash being the one who stayed at home while she did dangerous things violated gender their concept of gender roles, or anything like that. They objected because it was a marriage. A fairly happy marriage in a drama and you can't do that.

You can have characters get together. You can have divorced or separated characters. You can have a married couple who hate each other, you can have a marriage on the road to collapse but you can't have a relatively stable relatively happy marriage. Those are only allowed in comedies. Dramas are not allowed to have married people who are happy with the fact they're married.

So the reasoning went as I recall. But, again, I couldn't find my source to check.

Yeah, I can see that. Probably a blinder for me is that I watch more films than TV shows, and I was coming from the "happily marriage after" that seems to be appended to most movies by law. :/

Also, I was pleased at the depiction of an unhappily married woman where it isn't Obviously Her Fault that the marriage is going badly. (I'm looking at you, "Knocked Up".)

I do love happily married "real" couples who have problems and overcome them. Zoe and Wash, Piper and Leo (until Charmed jumped the shark YES IT DID), the parents in Juno, Gomez and Morticia. I have less patience for "and then they got married happily after knowing each other for 3 days and everything was lovely forever, unless there's a sequel in which case she will turn out to be a NAGGING SHREW TRYING TO CHANGE THE HERO". Bleh.

[...] unless there's a sequel in which case she will turn out to be a NAGGING SHREW TRYING TO CHANGE THE HERO". Bleh.

Re: Movies: Indeed. Or she'll die, or leave for some reason. In fact, the only movie sequels I can recall that feature the couple established in the original as having a functional, happy relationship are the second Antonio Banderas/Catherine Zeta Jones Zorro movie, and the second The Mummy, and I'm not even sure about those, since I haven't seen them Otherwise, I second your bleh.

Although now that you mention it, does anybody know if Wash's final fate in Serenity was planned from when Firefly was still on the air? It wouldn't surprise me, given Whedon's particular record.

I was coming from the "happily marriage after" that seems to be appended to most movies by law. :/

I have less patience for "and then they got married happily after knowing each other for 3 days and everything was lovely forever,

This. Part of the reason why film generally turn me off is because it insists on having romance arcs in a medium that is not particularly suited for them. Gone With The Wind is the one film I feel comes closest--at least, if you accept that the end goal or a romance arc isn't always "happily ever after"--and it's hardly an example to be emulated, even if most movies could. My favorite film couples are usually those that are already established at the beginning of the movie, and I wish there were more of them.

Oddly, one of the things I like about the first two Addams Family movies (the reunion one was a massive mistake in my opinion) is the strength of the bond between Morticia and Gomez.

Yes, I liked that too. Another thing I liked was the take on masculinity that Gomez presented. One the one hand he was a fairly classic alpha male, virile, highly-sexed, head of the household and so on. But on the other hand, he was exuberantly loving - not just towards his wife, but towards his brother, his kids, his extended family, his friends, and really anyone who formed a positive part of his community. So often alpha males are presented as driven only by sex and anger; to see one driven mostly by affection (and even his relationship with his wife seems as much based on fondness as lust), and who saw love as something that could be openly and joyfully expressed - well, it was really very cheering.

"I do love happily married "real" couples who have problems and overcome them. Zoe and Wash, Piper and Leo (until Charmed jumped the shark YES IT DID), the parents in Juno, Gomez and Morticia."

Part of the Gomez/Morticia fun was of course the fabulously over the top performance by the late Raul Julia (sniff).

"I have less patience for "and then they got married happily after knowing each other for 3 days and everything was lovely forever, unless there's a sequel in which case she will turn out to be a NAGGING SHREW TRYING TO CHANGE THE HERO". Bleh."

Weirdly the sequel may be more realistic, if nastier, than the original. A couple that hardly know each other when they married, especially when one is a Manic Pixie, are going to get on each other's last nerve. The most unpleasant part of that style though is that the writers always seem to take the man's side. The Manic Pixie Girl becomes a big nag, rather than the guy (who held promise of improving himself and being fun) has become a whiny-ass perpetual lump.

In fact, the only movie sequels I can recall that feature the couple established in the original as having a functional, happy relationship are the second Antonio Banderas/Catherine Zeta Jones Zorro movie, and the second The Mummy, and I'm not even sure about those, since I haven't seen them

I haven't seen the second Banderas/Zeta-Jones Zorro movie, but I understand that marital discord is a major theme and part of why it's so bad. Conversely, The Mummy Returns does in fact feature the original couple as happy together, happy with their differences, and with all implications that they will remain so. I would tend to agree that this is rare and a welcome change.

As I recall the second Zorro was that they broke up, he got drunk, she turned out to be a spy which was the real reason behind their break up, the soap was for nitroglycerin. It wasn't very good.

The Mummy movies, on the other hand, do I'm pretty sure have the main characters stay together as a happy couple.

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I think I've mentioned that I watch bad movies. If I haven't: I watch bad movies. Bad science fiction movies of the sort that tend to get show on Saturday on the Sci-Fi Channel. The quality of their badness has declined since it became the SeeFee Channel, almost as if they forget that there's a difference between "bad" and "unwatchable" half the time.

Anyway, I've noticed that in addition to the expected areas of their badness (acting, effects, plot, character, writing) they tend to have a very specific thing wrong them. The women are seldom sympathetic even when I'm pretty sure they're supposed to be. Sometimes this is because no one is sympathetic, but often times it isn't. The males will be decently sympathetic if poorly written and acted characters. The women will be wallbangingly stupid or jerkish or both and leave you wanting to scream at the screen.

Or, in one case, a movie managed to have two sympathetic women but the the one I think we were supposed to sympathize with was not sympathetic at all. In the end she got togetehr the male lead, her ex and the father of her child even though it seemed like everyone involved would have had a much better shot at happiness if they'd stayed separate. I think it was because there's some kind of a rule about exes needing to get back together and children needing to have married parents. (The adults in this teenage girl's life might be her mother and her father and her father's girlfriend? Unthinkable!)

That was a movie where the world had randomly heated up and they were trying to flee to a cooler climate. A different movie, in which the world was randomly cooled down and everyone was trying to flee to a warmer climate handled a similar situation well. In this case there was the father, the mother, and the mother's boyfriend. I was so irrationally happy when the mother's boyfriend didn't die or randomly decide to break up with the mother to make way for the mother and father getting back together. And I think the female lead was sympathetic. So a good bad movie all around I guess.

Anyway, massive digression aside, if bad movies are anything to go by, and they probably aren't, it seems like even when they try to side with the woman they still end up portraying her as a jerk.

I have such a crush on the Raul Julia Gomez, it's not even funny. I couldn't have said why, but Kit put her finger on it for me: He's passionate, but he's passionately loving and tender. Most of his anger moments are directly *correctly*, i.e, at the person trying to hurt his family and not, say, at his wife because someone wants to hurt his family.

Of course, I always thought his passionate nature was supposed to be some sort of American stereotype about foreigners. (Where is Gomez from??) Anywho.

Chris, do you watch MST3K? I love those. I tend to not be able to stomach the "bad sci-fi" without the rifftrax guys helping to make fun of it. And, yeah, it's amazing how far we've come in terms of gender roles -- difficult to imagine that things used to be worse until you watch some of those older movies and GAH.

Off-topic, we saw Cowboys and Aliens last night. Still not sure what to think of it. o.O

See, I didn't see the marriages as fundamentally unhappy, just as realistically flawed. I found it refreshing that they were neither blissfully happy with zero problems, nor clearly headed for divorce. The complaints seemed like the sort women would share perhaps over a few drinks. And I've noticed that women do tend to share complaints more than brag - perhaps its more socially acceptable? And even more so with good friends or in all female groups.

Thanks, Chris and Will, for the correction on the Zorro movie. I'm disappointed that that's the case, particularly since I remember enjoying the first film quite a bit when I last saw it.

Thinking about Manic Pixie Dream People, do they have to be love interests to qualify? I wonder if people who write the character type would notice the problematic aspects if they wrote them as say, the protagonists' best friend

Yeah, like "I don't have low self esteem. I have low esteem of everyone else." Oh Daria, hugs! Yeah, I know, supposed to be 17, I don't care, no way her voice actress or her dialogue writer weren't of legal age!

I think I quoted that a number of times when I was 14-16. Even moreso when I was describing my attitude at that age later on. The thing that really struck me in Daria is when she has to go to "self-esteem class." Because I actually was made to go to "self-esteem class" in 6th grade. Ironically, both I and the class bully were in it, and there was an unspoken agreement that neither of us would ever tell anyone else. It was just as bad as one would imagine - it certainly didn't raise my self-esteem any.

I think it's really odd how rare it is to have television shows where they have characters that are even more or less happily partnered. There is a lot of possibility of drama to be mined that is not on the extreme of uneventful perfect peace and relationship-ending horror, but you would think that there must be nothing to talk about there since they never do. On television shows they either have the characters fail to actually get together until the whole thing is mostly over or get together only to start an extended saga of their breaking up. It's kind of annoying.

While what you say is true, the movies I was referring to aren't actually old. They're generally made with those in mind, which might have something to do with it, but they're made now. And often quite forgettable, which is probably why I can't think of a good example to point out.

Some of the things are just knockoffs of whatever happens to be coming out at the moment. Something that was, I think, a direct to video version of Journey to the Center of the Earth involving a teleportation project and a drill ship comes to mind as a thing were I think we were supposed to find the two leads equally sympathetic but, as I recall, where the male lead actually was sympathetic, the female lead came across as a somewhat unhinged not fun to be anywhere near idiot ball holding jerk. And she was supposed to be a genius. (She designed the drill ship.)

I'm pretty sure that we were supposed to find the two of them equally likable, equally heroic, and equally at fault for their breakup (which occurred before the movie starts) so that when they mended their problems and got back together it was supposed to be a happy ending. Even though I think the writers were trying to do that, she wasn't likable, she seemed to be the only one at fault, and when she did her part to save the day it didn't feel all that heroic. (The fact that it was, as I recall, a take off on a scene from Congo but less well executed probably didn't help, though that's probably my haziest memory of this whole thing, so that might not be true.)

Anyway, that wasn't something made at a time when you can say "We've come a long way since then," since it was made only a few years ago.

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The new bad movie I watched a week ago, which was made this year, felt like it should have been an old movie (I'm thinking black and white) for the way it handled the female characters. Part of it made me compare it to War Games, and yet that movie from almost thirty years prior handled gender roles better. (The hacker's girlfriend in War Games was useful, damn it. And, I have only just realized, apparently Allison from The Breakfast Club, which has to count for massive bonus points.) Go back another thirty years before War Games and it might feel more at home, though I actually feel like It Came From Beneath the Sea may have done a better job.

[Added:]I grew up on MST3K, though I have not watched any of it in a long time. I remember being shocked and surprised when I saw This Island Earth (the film that was used in the MST3K movie) without the row of seats, heads in silhouette, and mocking voices.

My sister and I made a row of movie seats out of black construction paper so that we could put it on the TV screen and have MST3K when MST3K wasn't on. Because, I say as if it makes total sense and I knew for sure that this was the reason, if you just talk through the movie without the seats it isn't the same.

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